


(You're) My Favorite Book -  Cupid and Psyche Revisited

by LadyCallie



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Gen, Mental Breakdown, Recovery, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-04
Updated: 2010-11-04
Packaged: 2017-10-13 01:25:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/131276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyCallie/pseuds/LadyCallie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow knows she's loved when she wakes up to breakfast in bed everyday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(You're) My Favorite Book -  Cupid and Psyche Revisited

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whedonland's Storyteller challenge where you had to write a story with a given title and summary.

_The no-mind state is not the vacancy of idiocy but the most supremely alert intelligence, undistracted by extraneous thought. - Ramesh Balsekar_

  


* * *

 _  
_

The first breakfast was sparse; a single slice of toast, buttered, with a sprinkle of sugar, on a plate patterned with yellow roses. A traditional teacup and saucer accompanied the breakfast tray, a sliver of orange steeping with the breakfast blend. Her hands were still trembling slightly as she reached for the saucer. Lifting the cup, she found a tiny folded piece of paper. _As a wave, seething and foaming, is only water,_ was written in familiar flowing cursive. Willow smiled, and sipped her tea.

Day two dawned grey and foggy, she woke reaching for the weight she’d felt beside her all night, but the covers were cool and smoothed. A round bamboo tray offered a small dish of oatmeal mixed with bits of fruit and nuts and a tiny pot of earl gray, steam slipping from the spout. The teacup was upside down; as she turned it over, a small blue note fell out. _So all creation, streaming out of the Self, is only the Self._ Willow glanced at the open door to her room, wishing Tara would return and explain the quote.

 _Consider a piece of cloth; It is only threads!_   Unbearable anger broke over her, the parchment in her hand bursting into flames. “No!” she cried, eyes flashing black and green. Palm blazing, she swept the tray and the plate of round crumpets off the bed, the china breaking and scattering in fragments across the tile. The fire died and she fell, defeated and defeating, back to the bed. She slept fitfully the rest of the morning, dreaming of golden laughter, picnics and a blue eyed child with hair like sunlight.

The fourth day her breakfast was set purposefully on the table beside the eastern window. Dewdrops left tear tracks on the windowpane as she picked at a warm raspberry scone and black tea. She’d found today’s note under her napkin. _So all creation, when you look closely, is only the Self._ She read it once, refolded it neatly and finished her meal in silence.

She woke again with the sense that she had not been alone in the double bed all night, the lingering fragrance of clean clothes and nutmeg clinging to her senses as she brushed sleep from her eyes. She glanced around; looking for a sign someone had been there. On her bedside table rested a heavy earthenware mug on top of a slim leather-bound book. She sipped the hot cider and opened the cover. _From me the world streams out, and in me it dissolves, as a bracelet melts into gold, a pot crumbles into clay, a wave subsides into water._ _\- Ashtavakra Gita 2: 9-10_

The door to her room was open, muted sounds drifting in. Gripping her courage, she called, “Giles?”

He leaned against the doorframe, polishing his glasses. “Yes, Willow?”

“I think I’m ready to get up now.”

 

* * *

  


 _The obscure we see eventually.  The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.   -_ _Edward R. Murrow_


End file.
